Dhaka, June 5 -- Tomorrow is International Environmental Day. The banners will call for green living. The speeches will praise small innovations. But in the low-lying lanes of Dhaka, a more uncomfortable question floats up with the monsoon water. Why does the country that did the least to create the plastic and climate crisis keep being asked to borrow money to clean it up?

Take a single image. A woman in a crowded neighbourhood ties a plastic shopping bag around her bicycle basket, hoping to keep her vegetables dry-the bag tears within an hour. Tiny shreds of polyethene wash into a roadside drain. They join a hundred others. They clog the flow. Grey water spills into nearby homes. That scene (rain, torn plastic, blocked drains, wet floo...